The One-Way Trail Part 29

She broke off on the verge of hysteria and struggled for calmness.

Annie sensibly kept silent, and presently the distracted woman recovered herself.

"I won't say anything like that again, dear. I mustn't, but--but I had to say it to some one. You don't know what it is to keep all that on your mind and not be able to tell any one. But it's out now, and I--I feel better, perhaps."

Annie came to her side and placed her arm about her waist. Her action was all sympathy.

"I came here to listen," she said kindly. "I knew there was things troublin'. You can tell me anything--or nothing. And, Eve, you'll sure get my meanin' when I say the good G.o.d gave me two eyes to use, an'

sometimes to sleep with. Well, dear, I mostly sleep at nights."

Eve tried to smile, but it was a failure.

"You're a good woman, Annie, and--and I don't know how I'd have got on all this time without you. But sit you down and listen. I've begun now, and--and I must go on. Oh, I can't tell you quite why, but I want to tell it to somebody, and--and--I'll feel better. You said I don't need to do all this," she hurried on, pointing at the dressmaking. "I do. It's the only thing that keeps me from running away, and breaking my marriage vows altogether. Will's got no love for me, and I--my love for him died weeks ago. Maybe with those sharp eyes of yours you've seen it."

Annie nodded and Eve went on.

"I'm frightened, Annie, and--and I don't know why. Will's a different man, but it's not that. No," she added thoughtfully, "somehow I'm not frightened of him now. I--I hate him too much. But I'm frightened, and----"

She flung herself upon the worn settee, and lifted a pair of gloomy eyes to her friend's face. "I can never touch his money, nor the things he buys. I want nothing from him, either for Elia or myself.

I'm married to him and that I can't undo. Would to G.o.d I could! But I can never take anything from the man I do not love, and my love for Will is dead--dead. No, Annie, I must go on working in my own way, and I only hope and pray my husband will keep away. Maybe he will. Maybe when he's made a big pile out of his--claim he will go away altogether, and leave me in peace with Elia. I'm hoping for it--praying for it. Oh, my dear, my dear, what a mistake I've made!

You don't know. You can't guess."

There was a silence for some moments. Annie was thinking hard.

Suddenly she put a sharp question.

"Tell me, Eve. This fear you was saying. How can you be frightened?

What of?"

There was no mistaking the effect of her words. Eve's brown eyes suddenly dilated. She looked like a hunted woman. And Annie shrank at the sight of it.

"I don't know," she said with a shiver. "I--I can't describe it.

It's to do with Will. It's to do with"--she glanced about her fearfully--"his money, his gold find. Don't question me, because I don't know why I'm afraid. I think I first got afraid through Elia.

He's a queer lad--you don't know how queer he is at times. Well"--she swallowed as though with a dry throat--"well, from the first, when--when Will found gold Elia laughed. And--and every time we speak about it he laughs, and will say nothing. Oh, I wish I knew."

"Knew what?"

Annie's question came with a curious abruptness. Eve stared. And when she spoke it was almost to herself.

"I don't know what I want to know. Only I--I wish I knew."

Annie suddenly came over to her friend's side. She took her hands in hers and squeezed them sympathetically.

"Eve, I don't guess I've got anything to say that can help you. But whenever you want to talk things that'll relieve you, why, you can just talk all you like to me. But don't you talk of these things to any other folk. Sure, sure, girl, don't you do it. You can just trust me, 'cause I've got so bad a memory. Other folks hasn't. I'll be goin'

now to get my man's dinner. Good-bye."

She bent over and kissed the girl's thin cheek with a hearty smack.

But, as she left the house, there was a grave light such as was rarely, if ever, seen in her merry eyes.

CHAPTER XIX

BRANDED

There is no calm so peaceful, no peace so idyllic as that which is to be found on a Western ranch on a fine summer evening. Life at such a time and in such a place is at its smoothest, its almost Utopian perfection. The whole atmosphere is laden with a sense of good-fellowship between men and between beasts. The day's work is over, and men idle and smoke, awaiting the pleasures of an ample fare with appet.i.tes healthily sharp-set, and lounge contentedly, contemplating their coming evening's amus.e.m.e.nt with untroubled minds.

And the beasts which are their care. Fed to repletion on the succulent prairie gra.s.ses they know nothing but contentment. The shadow of the butcher's knife has no terrors for them. They live only for their day.

And the evening, when their stomachs are full and repose is in sight, is the height of their contentment.

Then, too, Nature herself is at her gentlest. The fierce pa.s.sion of heat has pa.s.sed, the harsher winds have died down, the worrying insects are already seeking repose. There is nothing left to harry the human mind and temper. It is peace--perfect peace.

It was such an evening on the ranch of the "AZ's." All these conditions were prevailing, except that the mind of Dan McLagan, the owner, was disturbed. Six of his boys were out on the special duty of searching for stolen cattle. This was bad enough, but Dan was fretting and chafing at the unpleasant knowledge that the epidemic of cattle stealing was spreading all too quickly.

He was never a patient man. His Celtic nature still retained all its native irritability, and his foreman, Jim Thorpe, had ample demonstration of it. He had spent several uncomfortable half hours that day with his employer. He was responsible for the working of the ranch. It was his to see that everything ran smoothly, and though the depredations of cattle-thieves could hardly come under the heading of his responsibilities, yet no employer can resist the temptation of visiting his chagrin on the head of his most trusted servant.

The hue and cry had been in progress for several weeks, and as yet no result of a hopeful nature had been obtained. And, in consequence, at every opportunity Dan McLagan cursed forcibly into the patient ears of his foreman.

Now, Jim was enjoying a respite. Dan had retired to his house for supper, and he was waiting for his to be served. He was down at the corrals, leaning on the rails, watching the stolid milch cows nuzzling and devouring their evening hay. His humor was interested. They had eaten all day. They would probably eat until their silly eyes closed in sleep. He was not sure they wouldn't continue to chew their cud amidst their bovine dreams. Each cow was already balloon-like, but the inflation was still going on. And each beast was still ready to horn the others off in its greediness.

He thought, whimsically, that the humbler hog was not given a fair position in the ranks of gluttony. Surely the bovine was the "limit"

in that basest of all pa.s.sions. One cow held his attention more particularly than the others. She was small, and black and white, and her build suggested Brittany extraction. She ran a sort of free lance piracy all round the corral. Her sharp horns were busy whenever she saw a sister apparently enjoying herself too cordially. And in every case she drove the bigger beast out and seized upon her choicest morsel.

Nor could he help thinking how little was the difference between man and beast. It was only in its objective. The manner was much the same.

Yes, and the very means employed created in him an impression favorable to the hapless quadruped. Surely their battle for existence was more honest, more natural.

His mood was pessimistic, even for a man who sees the traffic which is his keenest interest threatened by a marauding gang of land pirates.

Maybe it was the wearing hours of McLagan's nagging that caused his mood. Maybe it was an inclination brought about by the long train of disappointments that had been his as he trod his one-way trail. Maybe, as the cynical might suggest, his liver was out of order. However, whether it was sheer pessimism, or even the shadow cast by approaching events, he felt it would be good when the evening was past, and he could forget things in the blessed unconsciousness of sleep.

But his meditations were suddenly disturbed. The ranch dogs started their inharmonious chorus, and experience taught him that there are only two things which will stir the lazy ranch dog to vocal protest; the advent of the disreputable sun-downer, and the run of driven cattle.

He quickly discovered, at sight of a thick rising dust to the westward of the ranch, that the present disturbance was not caused by any ragged "b.u.m." Cattle were coming in to the yards, and it needed little imagination on his part to guess that some of the boys on special duty were running in lost stock.

His pessimism vanished in a moment, and in its place a keen enthusiasm stirred. If it were some of the lost stock then they would probably have news of the thieves. Maybe even they'd made a capture. He hurried at once in the direction of the approaching cattle. Nor was he alone in his desire to learn the news. Every man had left his supper at the bunk house to greet the newcomers.

The incoming herd was still some distance away, but the bunch was considerable judging by the cloud of dust. Jim found himself amongst a group of the boys, and each and all of them were striving to ascertain the ident.i.ty of those who were in charge.

"Ther's two o' them, sure," exclaimed Barney Job, after a long scrutiny. "Leastways I ken make out two. The durned fog's that thick you couldn't get a glimpse o' Pedd.i.c.k's flamin' hair in it."

"Cut it out, Barney," cried the lantern-faced owner of the fiery red hair. "Anyways a sight o' my hair 'ud be more encouragin' than your ugly 'map.' Seems to me, bein' familiar with my hair 'll make the fires of h.e.l.l, you'll likely see later, come easier to you when they git busy fumigatin' your carkis."

"Gee! that's an elegant word," cried Hoosier Pete, a stripling of youthful elderliness. "Guess you've bin spellin' out Gover'ment Reg'lations."

"Yep. San'tary ones. Barney's thinkin' o' gettin' scoured in a kettle o' hot water," said Pedd.i.c.k, with a laugh.

"Needs it," muttered a surly Kentuckian.

"Hey!" interrupted Barney, quite undisturbed by his comrades' remarks upon his necessity for careful ablutions. "Them's Joe Bloc an' Dutch Kemp. I'd git Dutch's beard anywher's. You couldn't get thro' it with a hay rake. Sure," he went on, shading his eyes, "that's them an'